Overview

• President Vladimir Putin signed a decree relieving Roman Starovoit of his duties without offering any justification, ending his year-long tenure.
• Starovoit’s body was discovered hours later in a car parked in the Odintsovo district with a gunshot wound and a pistol recovered at the scene.
• The Investigative Committee of Russia has opened a criminal probe and cited suicide as the main theory under investigation.
• Deputy minister Andrei Nikitin, a former Novgorod governor, was immediately appointed acting transport minister following Starovoit’s firing.
• Starovoit faced mounting pressure from multi-day flight cancellations and delays caused by Ukrainian drone attacks and unverified corruption allegations from his time as Kursk governor.